


Specialness and the Destined Partnership

by yourlibrarian



Series: Reviews [8]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Episode Review, Episode: s04e03 The Wicked Day, Gen, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-05 13:43:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6706639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourlibrarian/pseuds/yourlibrarian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I was pleasantly surprised by Merlin 4.3.  To start with, it would have been easy to make such an anticipated episode underwhelming.  But I also have thoughts about how well Merlin and Arthur will ever be able to work together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Specialness and the Destined Partnership

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted January 25, 2012

I read a [delightful Merlin/Sherlock crossover](http://archiveofourown.org/works/322841) the other night which I would recommend to anyone who likes either series. However, it got me to thinking. There was a line in it about how Merlin could be as stubborn as Sherlock and cold as Mycroft. And while one could argue about the stubborn part, it seemed to me that coldness is simply not a word I can associate with Merlin. With him, it's heat all the way through. If anything, Merlin feels entirely too much, and the storyline of the series has made clear that that's going to cost everyone a great deal of grief down the line.

It also made me think of [this fic](http://lady-ragnell.livejournal.com/8721.html) which did a nice job in pointing out that while our sympathies may lie with Merlin because it's primarily his POV through which the story is told, that really from Arthur's POV, Merlin, however well meaning and helpful, is a terribly untrustworthy person. And it's mostly because Merlin answers to no one but himself.

In fact, Merlin and Arthur are, to some degree, working at cross purposes. Merlin isn't simply protecting Arthur, he is furthering his own agenda which is based largely on his own desire to believe in his specialness. Obviously, most people want to believe in their own specialness, and generally with a lot less cause than Merlin. But really, if it weren't for Kilgarrah, Merlin would probably never have believed that he had a grand destiny, and certainly not at Arthur's side. He could just as easily have ended up opposed to Arthur, which would have certainly validated a lot of Uther's beliefs and Arthur's suspicions. After all, Uther is not a sympathetic king, and it is only Merlin's belief in his role as protector that allows him to start seeing Arthur's own doubts.

Arthur, on the other hand, may not have thought of it as a grand destiny, but he was always aware that he had a great responsibility ahead of him, and, however much of a jerk he was at the start of the story, always took that role seriously. Arthur leads a life as comfortable as anyone can have in their time and place, but it has not been a life of leisure, and it's certainly been a perilous and isolated one. What's more, unlike Merlin, who has a certain freedom because he doesn't fit neatly into his society's hierarchies, Arthur not only has to answer to Uther like everyone else, but to some degree has to answer to other peers in his caste system. Merlin answers to Arthur only so long as he feels like it. His power doesn't come from either a certain societal position, or a life of constant training.

However rough a transition it is, the series is obviously set up so that somehow in the future Arthur and Merlin will work together as a team. But the longer Merlin engages, not only in deception but his own game plan, the harder it is for me to believe in the two of them ever overcoming that hurdle in a realistic way. 

I've never been satisfied with the way that Morgana's character transitioned from sympathetic to revenge-driven, but I get the gist of why she's supposed to have changed in this way. She never agreed with Uther's policies, even before she had to have known she herself had magic. She no more believed in Uther's mercy than Merlin believes in Arthur's. And then there was the personal betrayal of realizing he'd never acknowledged her connection to him, and thus her own claim to the throne. Add that to the idea of someone filling her head with her possible destiny and helping her develop a considerable power, and one can see how she might change (even though the portrayal has been heavy handed and cartoonish).

In short, her position is not that different from Merlin's; indeed due to her birth and long proximity to the Pendragons, she has even more reason to feel justified in thinking she deserves to direct Camelot's affairs. Whereas Merlin is, in cold reality, an outsider who has decided he has a right to guide Arthur's decisions simply because he holds the power to do so. He's not even going to be allied to the family in marriage like Gwen (at least not in canon). In short, he has as much right to do so as Lancelot or Gwaine.

Once that becomes obvious, it certainly puts a rather interesting cast on the story, one that I haven't seen picked up in fanfic (though this may be because I'm still new to reading it and haven't gone for either darkfic or Merlin/Morgana so far, which I could imagine would really delve into that). One wonders how committed to it Merlin would be, if he didn't keep being told that Albion would be a _shared_ destiny.

I was pleasantly surprised by Merlin 4.3. To start with, it would have been easy to make such an anticipated episode underwhelming. It could just be me, but I've been expecting Uther to die off since the first few episodes or, at the least, as part of the S1 finale. It's kind of remarkable that he's still around in S4.

To me, it's similar to the problem SPN had with its "search for Dad" in S1. I figured that could only culminate in his death. Like Uther, John was an authoritarian and dictatorial parent, and since the show (in both cases) is centered on the sons, not only would they never be able to come into their own while he was alive, but the show's path would be shanghaied by his persona so long as he was around. To have Uther still around is similar to John Winchester still being alive midway into S3. 

However, I would never have guessed that such a critical episode would wind up being so amusing -- and the beginning of the episode certainly didn't make it obvious to me where they were headed with it. The writers had a lot to pack into this -- give everyone something to do even though Arthur has the central conflict, try to up the tension about what will happen, and balance out the angst with the funny. I think they succeeded quite well and had some really nice cinematography and wonderful acting to boot. All of the segments after the final break were beautifully shot, particularly Arthur coming out of the room, and Merlin sprawled at the foot of the stairs.

The one part where I thought they could have done better was with the final spell over Uther. I realize they needed to give Morgana something to do in this episode (or in most episodes, frankly) but I thought they could have increased the tension by having her plan frustrated. It seemed clear to me that if they were really going to kill Uther off, which as soon as Arthur turned to magic, one could be sure they were going to do, then they could not possibly have mended the other pressure seam in the series, which is the subterfuge/persecution angle over magic. 

As the episode makes clear, the fact that Arthur is taking the throne is not a de facto guarantee that this particular issue will change (or, in a more realistic sense, that anything much would change). So I was fairly sure that Merlin would fail, Uther would die, and Merlin's hopes would be dashed. However, I thought it would have been better had the audience been momentarily fooled by someone removing the necklace. It would have been easy enough had, say, Guenevere been changing his bandage and set it aside, and then forgot to replace it. Or one might have had Gaius spot it and take it away to investigate (that he had such a pat answer so quickly was, to me, a weakness). Especially given that we have that scene where Arthur blames himself for his arrogance in going against his father, it would have been a nice mirror if _Merlin_ also recognizes his own arrogance in going against Gaius' advice and failing to cure Uther because he simply _failed_ , not because he was sabotaged by Morgana. He wouldn't even have to make that explicit by saying anything, it would be inherent in the text. 

What's more, I think it would be better for the show in the long run if Merlin's power over life and death were left more ambiguous, and that in the future he'd always be wary of whether or not he could actually tamper with that issue. 

In fact, I think that the arrogance issue with Merlin may have been intentional even though it was undermined with the Morgana elements. Speaking of fathers and sons, one thing I thought they did do in a nicely subtle way in this episode was to show how Merlin is challenging and pulling away from Gaius' guidance, trying to leap forward just at the time when Arthur, who is as capable as Uther believes him, is trying to pull back, to hold off the future a little longer and cling to what guidance and protection his father can still give. At the same time, I thought it interesting that Merlin, who is trying to guide Arthur down the path he wants to take him, appears to Arthur as an old man, a grandfatherly figure even. Especially as regards the magic issue he is literally trying to step into Uther's place in terms of directing Arthur's mind. So I thought it would have been just right to have it turn out in the final scenes that Arthur is more ready than he thinks, and that Merlin is less ready than he thinks. It makes for a nice balance and would give their final exchanges a rather different meaning.

But in any case, I enjoyed what they did with it, and there were various fun moments and very poignant ones. Uther got a heroic last stand, Gwen continues to be a pillar of support for Arthur, Gaius continues to be there for Merlin, and both Arthur and Merlin were particularly relatable and human in the episode.


End file.
